Welcome to my blog! I blog about the historical romances I write as well as the history behind them.

The Tea Party and Copycat Crimes

An old post on the Boston1775 blog (one of my absolute favorites) about a "tea
burning" reenactment in Lexington, raised an old question that I have
had for awhile now.I had heard - or
read somewhere - that there were other "tea parties" in other cities,
but I hadn't been able to uncover any more about them. (I was thinking of using
one such event in a novel, but I didn't want to set this particular story in
Boston.)

The Boston Tea PartyI am pretty certain this same picture was in my 8thgrade history book - probably with a caption thatblamed the Sons of Liberty.

Here's J.L.' response to my question:

Americans didn't start using the term "tea
party" for the destruction of the tea until the early 1800s, and then the
romanticization of the Boston act made local historians attach that name to
every destruction of tea. So there was nothing on the scale of what happened in
Boston in December 1773, but over the following months there were stocks of tea
destroyed in Boston (again); New York; Salem; Greenwich, New Jersey; Annapolis;
and elsewhere.

Very interesting. I took the opportunity to ask him another
question that I've had for a long time: Do
we really know who did it? My kids' history books in elementary school all
said The Sons of Liberty. But, do we really know that for certain? No one was
ever prosecuted. (Although many were persecuted
because if it by the subsequent Intolerable Acts.) I haven't received a
response yet, but I will share J.L.'s input when I do.

An interesting side note: Click
here for an old document showing a list of the members of the Sons of
Liberty who "din'd" at Liberty Tree. Click on the image to enlarge
it.

Two things stood out for me:

— First, there were a lot more of
them than I thought. I always envisioned

the Sons of Liberty to be a couple 15
- 20 guys. There are dozens upon dozens on this list, and the year was only
1769. Plus, as difficult as it was to travel in those days, surely not all of
them made it to the Liberty Tree that day.

— Second, would you look at that
penmanship! I was thinking it might have been John Hancock's, but the J's aren't
shaped like his.

Circa 1923 collage showing some of the membersof the Sons of Liberty. Obviously, they left out a few.

As for the "who dun it" aspect of this story, I
can easily picture Sam Adams donning face paint and pitching bales of tea over
the side, but I can't see him keeping quiet about it. On the other hand, I just
can't imagine men like John Adams and John Hancock joining in on the
"festivities." My guess is that it was probably the work of Sam Adams
and those who followed him, and the prospect of being hanged kept him mum for
once. Nor, for the sake of unity, were the others about to give up one of their
own, whether they were complicit or not.